Hacker With Half a Billion Stolen Login Credentials from LinkedIn, Dropbox and Twitter Is Now Revealed

The identity of one of the most notorious cybercriminals in the recent years has allegedly been revealed, The Hacker News report. So far the hacker was known as Tessa88, but now “Recorded Future”, a US-based cybersecurity firm, shared publicly that his real name is Maksim Vladimirovich Donakov. The 29-year-old Russian citizen is responsible for stealing and selling numerous databases from some of the most popular social media platforms in the world, including LinkedIn, MySpace, VKontakte (vk.com), Dropbox, Rambler, and Twitter.

The cybersecurity incident happened in early 2016 when the hacker announced he can provide access to personal data in several underground hacking forums. Members of these forums reported tessa88’s activity as fraud and he was eventually banned. However, it remained unclear who stands behind this cybercrime.

Evidence suggests that the victims of the hacker are more than half a billion. The stolen usernames and passwords were used in phishing, account takeover, and other cyberattacks. Researchers found plethora of evidence (e.g. YouTube videos and images uploaded on several forums) that Maksim Donakov is the person behind Tessa88.

Another Russian hacker – Yevgeniy Nikulin – was charged, arrested, and extradited to the US due to accusations of hacking into Dropbox and LinkedIn, two of the databases that Tessa88 had put up online for sale back in 2016.

Unfortunately, cases like this one are still getting into the news feed, but the majority of companies worldwide (small and big ones) do not recognise the need of a stable strategy concerning their cybersecurity. As we informed you in arecent article, research shows that only 65 % of the organisations actually rely on a cybersecurity expert in their work.Further studies show that 90% of companies on a global scale have experienced increased volume of phishing attacks or they keep the same level as before for the last year.Another research shows that cybersecurity attacks are reported by nearly 70% of small business representatives in North America.

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